Erin R. Crouch
Sec 202
Group #1
I. Introduction: The title of the article being researched
is Nature, nurture and academic achievement: A twin study of teacher
assessments of 7-year-olds. This
article is written by Walker, Petrill, Spinath,
and Plomin (2003). In this paper I will discuss the differing
roles of genetics and a child’s environment upon their level of academic
achievement as rated by their teachers.
Upon examining this paper, the reader shall obtain a greater knowledge
of twin studies and how they work. The
reader will also procure a better understanding of the relationship between the
teacher’s academic achievement ratings and the genetic abilities in children. Following this introduction the paper will
consist of four parts. Next, this paper
will briefly review the article being researched. Secondly, this paper will discuss how the
information provided in the article can be applied. Third, the paper will inform the reader of
how the writer thinks and feels toward the article. Finally, this paper will conclude with a summary and closing observations.
II. Brief
Literature Review: In Nature,
nurture and academic achievement: A twin study of teacher assessments written
by Walker et al. (2003),
first the reader encounters an abstract, or brief outline of the
article. It informs the reader with a
short overview of the article in six categories: background, aims, sample,
methods, results, and conclusions. Next,
the authors provide a short introduction where they discuss why they deem their
study to be relevant to education. They
state that most behavioral genetic analyses in the past had centered on
standardized testing to measure a student’s academic achievement. However, they argue that teachers
assessments of academic achievement are also valuable as they rate the
student’s abilities in the real world (Walker et al., 2003).
Next,
the authors write about the details of their method. In this section of the article, the authors
provide the reader with the location and the number of twins and their teachers
who were contacted for the study. After
this the authors detail their means of measuring the students
academic achievement. This study was
done in the UK so the authors used teacher assessments based on the UK National
Curriculum for ages 5 to 7(Walker et al., 2003). Their assessments were based on three
categories in English (Speaking and listening,
Next
the authors inform the readers of their analyses. In this section readers are provided with
information about how twin studies work.
Basically the twin method of research, commonly used in genetic testing,
compares the similarity of fraternal or dizygotic and
identical or monozygotic twins (Walker et al., 2003). They inform readers that identical twins
share 100% of the same genetic material, however fraternal twins share only the same amount of
genes as normal siblings, roughly 50% (Walker et al., 2003). This section also includes a brief overview
of the science behind genes and human DNA.
After this discussion of the twin method, the
authors proceed to write about the results of their test. In this section the authors provide the
reader with all the correlations gathered from their study. They provide many tables and figures to help
the reader visualize the information.
Lastly the authors add a discussion section. In this section the results are concluded and
the main idea of the article is stated.
Here Walker et al. (2003) state “The consistent pattern of higher MZ
twin correlations relative to DZ twins suggests genetic influence on academic achievement,
even when the twins were assessed by different teachers” (p. 334).
III.
Supporting Experiences and Applications: The most important aspect of this study’s
findings is that heredity is an important contributor to the academic
achievement of young children (Walker et al., 2003). It is possible that some teachers upon
learning this truth may treat the low-performing students as though they have
no hope of ever improving their academic achievement. These teachers may not try to influence the
environments of low-achieving children for the better, thus causing a
self-fulfilling prophecy towards these children, handicapping them in their
ability to better themselves. Some
teachers may read this study’s findings and develop feelings of environmental
nihilism, or believing that if something is genetic there is nothing that can
be done environmentally to stop, prevent or change it. However the authors of this article argue
effectively that this is untrue and that these ideas need to be overcome.
Also
this study may help to “bridge the wide gap between the field of education and
the field of genetics” (Walker et al, 2003, p. 338).
Better
decisions are able to be made when better and more knowledge is present. I have found from my own experience that
most teachers truly care for the betterment of their students. I believe these educators will also see in
this study the close ties of the environment and academic achievement and these
teachers will use this knowledge to encourage the low performing students even
more. Also, this knowledge may lead to
the furtherance of intellectually gifted programs where students who have high
IQs are able to get the enrichment and stimulation they need to succeed in the
early elementary school classroom. In my
own experience as a gifted student I had teachers who did not believe I should
be pulled out of their regular classes to attend special classes. Some teachers would not let me make up
important work missed during gifted classes or some teachers would make me do
all the “busy” work the class did while I was away. Many times my mother, who is also an
educator, would have to come to school and speak with these teachers to insure
I was getting the proper attention I needed as a gifted student.
IV. Affective
and Opinion: In this writer’s
opinion, the article discussed in this paper will not change the world of
education. However it may stimulate
minor changes in particular teachers if they would be willing to change their
long held beliefs. However this article
is well written so that most educators would be able to easily understand
it. Many research based articles are
written in a way so as only people with science majors can understand
them. However this article provides all
the scientific data but also provides the reader with all the information they
need to fully understand, even if the reader had never heard of a twin study
before. According to this writer, the
most helpful addition to this article are the titles
of the different subsections. These
allow a reader to investigate each step of the study’s process, along with all
the background information about each step.
V. Conclusion: This writer believes this article to be
well written with each step of the scientific process documented and thoroughly
explained. The organization of the
article with each step of their research used as a subtitle provides the reader
with a notion of what is to come, helping with comprehension. Also the organization allows people without
backgrounds in science fields to be able to read and understand the
article. This writer finds this article
to be an interesting research project discussing the genetic predetermination
of classroom performance. The article provides
educators with information they may need to help access, monitor, and
supplement children in their classrooms.
Reference
Walker, S., Petrill, S., Spinath, F., and Plomin R. (2004). Nature, nurture and academic achievement:
A twin study of teacher assessments of 7 year olds. British Journal of Educational Psychology,
3 (74), 323-338 .